Not Playing
by Ingenious Insomniac
Summary: AU: For once, it isn't a game. And that's the frightening part. (Panlix)


**_Not Playing_**

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_Just another 3x11 Never Happened AU, idea inspired by GraveVyxen on AO3_

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It was clear the spell wasn't going to do Pan any favors. Everything was wrong the instant they crossed the town line in that screeching metal death-trap the Savior called a Chevy.

A thrum of magic whizzed through the small vehicle, and Felix sat upright with some confidence in driving. Pan still had to hold his head to keep from seasickness.

The magic had put them in starchy denims and scratchy sweatshirts. They had wallets after the spell stopped, too. In Pan's, a few wrinkly bills decked in green with the indifferent face of a dead man, boldfaced number ones in the corners. Felix's had an identification card and a second scrap of plastic that (according to Felix) worked as currency.

Pan didn't like the way Felix just knew all these things.

He knew it was just what Rumple wanted. It was the only petty revenge he could muster in attempt to torture his father after the Heroes of the town decided execution was a bit extreme. Still, Pan's teeth ground together when he realized why Felix was given the upper hand under this spell.

It was so Pan would need the kid, so he'd have to be dependent - so he'd be powerless.

And it thoroughly pissed him off.

He knew he shouldn't complain, that he ought to look for loopholes or at least a game that came from his loss. And he tried - through the entire drive away from that miserable little town, Pan's mind had been racing.

Why hadn't he just cast that damn curse? He'd been lonely before, he could be lonely again until he found someone under the new curse to fill Felix's shoes. Maybe even Henry. Someone else would've been his friend. After a while.

But friendships can be cheap, and Pan knows this. All his Lost Ones turned their backs on him without a second thought, all but one. Pan knows enough to know he ought to praise Felix for his loyalty, not destroy him.

Besides, Pan never wanted Storybrooke anyhow. All he ever wanted in the first place was immortality and the freedom to do whatever he wanted. He didn't need to rule the world, and if he did, he'd certainly aim higher than a small town of people he hates.

However.

The idea that he'd misstepped, messed up because of sentiment of all things, set his blood boiling.

It was because of sentiment that he'd decided the curse wasn't worth it. That much, at least, saved his life.

_There's got to be some good left in him_, came the reasoning skills of Snow White, _if he isn't willing to start the curse at all. _

But of course, he was still a villain, and punishment was required. Banishment, then, they decided.

It was a stupid idea. But then again the Heroes of Storybrooke never received any awards for their intelligence.

But, Rumplestiltskin had stripped Pan of his magic, granting him a car and the bare minimum required to exist in this world. And under the oath (and spell) that he would never meddle with any of them ever again, Pan managed to gain immortality from the deal as well.

Pan got off easy, he knew it. So why, he had to wonder, did he feel cheated?

He wonders all these things, runs it through his mind over and over again as he tries to get some sleep.

Pan hates this. He hates the feeling of plastic tags on the back of a cotton t-shirt. He loathes the knowledge he is in some hotel boasting it was the best 'Western' while there were thousands others just like it. Detests lying on a springy mattress with stale sheets that barely keep any heat. He hates the feeling of lying helpless, without magic, in a world he knows nothing about, with nothing but the boy lying in the adjacent bed.

He hates not having the upper hand. He hates that there's no upper hand to have.

He couldn't let on how infuriated he'd been earlier that day when Felix walked up to the woman at the tall desk and knew exactly what to do to rent a room in this strange world. How it didn't phase him at all when the woman gave him a plastic card instead of a key and how he knew to swipe it in the door rather than turn it in a lock.

It put Pan into an awful mood.

Felix was smart enough to notice and stupid enough to try to lift it. "You'll get used to it."

"Of course I will," Pan snapped, collapsing onto the sky-blue bedspread that reeked of scented soap.

"Let me help you," Felix offered. "Teaching you how to use a microwave is a small price to pay for everything you've done for me."

Pan had just glared, "What the bloody hell is a microwave?"

They hadn't spoken for the rest of the night.

And now Peter lies in an uncomfortable bed, staring at bright city lights from a sliver in the curtains. He's tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep. The perils of insomnia are odd to him; he hasn't had to sleep in centuries.

He lost, and now he has to do something as mundane as sleep. It isn't fair, and Pan wants to growl, wants to thrash and tear the pillows apart. Wants to throw a fit that causes hurricanes and tidal waves. But no, he doesn't have so much influence over this world, and won't have influence ever again.

He - Peter Pan - is as much of a nobody as he was back when he went by another name. Perhaps even more so; at least everyone in that dreadful village knew the name Malcolm. Infamy is better than anonymity.

Felix doesn't understand, and he isn't any help about it, Peter realizes with a huff.

"We'll be okay, Peter. You'll think of something. You always do."

Peter had rolled his eyes and dropped on the bedspread, wanting to sink into the mattress and disappear. Everything felt wrong without magic - everything. The worst of it was that he couldn't find a way out of this cage. He hadn't had enough time to find a loophole, and Rumple had been less than accommodating to his inquiries.

"Peter?"

"What?"

Felix paused for a moment, as though unsure what to say. "Magic or not - you're still Peter Pan."

Honestly, Peter isn't sure what that means anymore, and there isn't a game he can think of to help him find the definition.

Peter, at the time, had just groaned and rolled over, closing the discussion. But now he lies awake, thinking about the words. Thinking about how long he'd considered Felix his friend. Wondering how long it'd been since he placed Felix a tier above the rest amongst his boys on Neverland. Perhaps that had been a misstep, prompted them to betray, but he couldn't have asked for a better lieutenant.

He spins around on the mattress, eyeing over the lifeless shadows of the hotel room. The silhouette of the picture-screen he'd been so confused of earlier. The 'tell-her-phone' he doesn't know how to work or what it does. The cold air blowing from the vents.

This isn't fun and Pan wants to go home.

Perhaps that's why, in the next moment, he finds himself crossing the room to sit on the bed shoved against the other wall. It springs down underneath his weight, and Felix jolts to attention. It seems as though he hadn't been able to sleep either.

"I'm cold," Peter offers and Felix instantly slides over on the mattress. The bed it isn't supposed to fit two, but Felix presses his back against the wall, still unquestioningly obedient. For this, Pan is glad as he wriggles in underneath sheets.

It isn't until Peter's toes begin to tap on the bone protruding in Felix's ankle that he speaks. He chills his voice to match the air in the room. "You wanted to help, didn't you?"

It suffices as an order, but it sounds like he's drowning, and Felix complies as though he's ten feet underwater. Felix's fingers find the exact places along his spine to make him arch back into the contact. Peter's eyes flicker shut. Felix is pressing him in closer, warmth from both bodies pulsing through the thin material over their torsos.

"Peter?" His voice is coarse but alert as Peter's fingers begin to snap the waistband against his bony hips. "What is it?"

Peter's breath shivers along with his shoulders. It's as though he's a thread of gossamer, lacerated by blunt shears. An infant in the middle of the ocean. He knows nothing, he is nothing.

"Don't," He begins in a voice that's trying so hard to sound confident. "Don't you dare _think_ about what I'm about to do."

And when Peter kisses him, it's harsh and new and frightening. Almost as frightening as the prospect of a new world, without magic, without leverage - with only Felix by his side.

He's surprised when Felix's hands tighten around him, and lips bite back.

Noses bump together and Peter isn't entirely sure what to do with his hands from lack of practice. They flitter around and settle on the long neck beside him. His thumb brushes against the ridges on Felix's scar, light. It's nothing at all like the pressure building in his mouth as he nibbles and nuzzles the lips that peck and suckle against his.

Felix asserts himself almost immediately, taking Peter's bottom lip between his teeth and dragging his tongue along the skin. His nails flash out like a feline, scraping against the t-shirt Peter wears as though it's offensive.

Peter finds himself smiling, almost teasing from sheer habit. In response, Felix's lips turn up, swollen and soft. His fists tighten on Peter's shirt as he pulls down, kisses his neck three times, each one deeper than the last.

He listens as Peter's breath hitches and his smile broadens as his lips skim up Peter's neck until they cap his chin. He frowns as reality sinks in. "What's this about?"

Peter won't admit he wants comfort. He doesn't even allow the thought to cross his own mind, much less his lips. Instead, he makes his voice light. "There might have been a few..._facets_ of our relationship I've overlooked. I think now seems like the perfect time to start examining them. Seeing as it'll just be us for a while."

Felix frowns, "You don't have your magic."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Peter, I know you." Felix's fingers slip from around Peter and the boy accidentally shivers. "You're frustrated."

"And here I thought you'd jump at the chance to ease those frustrations." Peter makes a show of sighing and looking casual. He still clutches onto Felix for warmth, contradicting his words. "I have to say I'm disappointed."

Felix starts. It stings, but he knows Peter well enough to know he isn't all here. Little else could have inspired _this_. It frustrates Felix, because all he knows how to do is to hold still and retaliate to the motions Peter initiates. It can't be enough, he can't be enough, but he's only human. But what Peter's suggesting…

"You're not yourself right now."

"Oh, I'll be myself again tomorrow." Peter rolls his eyes. "A lot's been taken away from me in the past few days, Felix. I want compensation."

"Don't play me." Felix's whispers are barely audible against the harsh sound from the vents, blowing cold air all around them.

"Why not? That's what you like about me." Peter finds his breath hitching again as Felix hovers back, lips so close they hit, touch and go, as words pass between them. "Besides, things are changing. I don't like change. Can you imagine what our lives are going to be like from here on out?"

Peter's hands slide down Felix's face as he speaks, lacing under his arms to meet in the dip of his back, sliding under stretchy cotton. "You and me just skirting from one city to the next? Cheating our way to cheap rooms in all the Westerns? See which one is really best?"

Felix's lips closed in over his as Peter continued to talk between kisses.

"The world our only adversary, me and you just barely scraping by. Not answering to anyone."

"I thought that was the plan," Felix's monotone breaks over the whirring fan at the head of the room.

"But then we add this to the mix and things get interesting, don't they?" Peter smiles and lowers his voice as though they are in the center of their camp, surrounded by Lost Ones. "My lips between your teeth. My hips against yours, clutching skin and handfuls of these awful sheets. You and me, our lives in a series of rooms, making the best of this life we have because of you."

Felix jolts away in surprise, eyes widening, heart stopping. "Because of me?"

Peter sees his mistake. His ears flush red but he displays no other physical betrayal of something so human as embarrassment. He won't let Felix know that the reason he didn't cast the curse was because the idea of crushing his heart into dust sounded suicidal.

Instead he nips on the vein in Felix's neck, laughing as the boy cants and lets small noises warble up from his stomach and chest.

The gravity in the situation is almost funny. There's no affection in the touches, in the sounds. But it's intimate as hell.

Besides, Pan knows that no matter what he needs, Felix can deliver. Right now he needs intimacy. In five minutes he'll need compliance, and Felix will lie back and _comply_. In the morning he'll hate himself for his vulnerability and need a punching bag, and Felix won't even ask for ice. In two days his optimism will return and they'll be Pan and his Lost One once more, and Felix will slip back into that role flawlessly.

But he needs a different role right now.

They sit up, almost in tandem, and Peter helps Felix lift his t-shirt off over his head, and Felix in turn rips it off him. Peter does his best not to act surprised at the sheer amount of scarring that's collected on his friend's body over the centuries. Tries not to smirk when he realizes Felix's skinniness is anything but a deterrent. Tries not to let on how he noticed Felix's muscles are firm and strong against his slide of hands despite the wispy appearance.

Five centuries, almost exactly, and he's never considered this before. There was always something more important than warm skin and long limbs, whatever game he could dream up. But right now it seems hard to imagine something could be more important.

Felix maneuvers his way back to Peter's lips, hands balled into fists on his bare shoulder blades. He flips the boy onto his back with sudden force neither of them had been expecting.

They stop. Breaths are difficult to measure when they're this ragged.

"Peter," Felix's voice is low. "What's the game?"

Peter sighs in a voice that hasn't been so shaky since the night on the Jolly Roger he tried to take Henry's heart. "It's not."

And that's the frightening part.

As though perfectly synchronized, they nuzzle together, pressing and sliding, biting with fierce intention.

He's caught so off guard by himself, by Felix, by the sudden white-hot patches searing through his stomach and spine. He'd think to be upset if he had anything to lose from the situation.

For once, there is not a damn thing he could do to go and ruin this situation. And nothing he can do to turn the tides in his favour.

For once, it's all action and action alone. All the consequences play out in shades of grey, nothing so simple as winning and losing.

It's funny how defeat reveals one's priorities.

Because the truth is he wants his friendship with Felix to burn.

Burn it down, roll around in the ashes, and pray to everyone and anything that might listen that something might rise from it. Some phoenix that was better than the last.

He flips him, switching around so he's perched with his legs on either side of Felix's hips. Peter's hand skims up the skinny ribs displayed in front of them, fanning and hiding a particularly nasty scar, and although they aren't sure why, they laugh.

Maybe it's because there's nothing better to do than laugh. No game, no manipulation. Just a sudden moment, eclipsed by the tragedy of the situation, and Peter had revealed more than he intended to.

He'd say it is just part of the game, if only he was playing.

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**Author's Note: **Yet another one-shot I could see spiraling into a series. Would anybody be interested if I continued with this? Just them traipsing around, adjusting to the new world, we'd get to see Peter with his confidence back, and how to use a microwave. Anyway, let me know if you're interested.

So...ehh...this was an experiment in a few ways.

I wanted to try to harness the more erratic side to Pan, a defeated side. And I didn't want this to get too stream of consciousness, but I'm a bit worried this came off as...stale? Unexplained? Anyway, let me know what you think of the style choice.


End file.
